Oven inauguration day.
It’s been something of a hectic week for me, what with moving from the Baltimore to the Boston area, and all, but I’ve still managed to find a little time to do some home cooking in my new (and newly-renovated) kitchen. For our inaugural project, Russell and I settled on the first recipe in my first cookbook: chocolate chip cherry almond cookies. We happen to live near an independent organic grocery that sells dried cherries, which can be hard to find in East coast chain stores. You can substitute some other dried fruit for them if you need to, just as long as you promise not to even consider those cherry-flavored cranberry abominations. Our entire batch of cookies disappeared within a couple days leaving just this last, lonely one. Won’t you make him some delicious new friends?
Ingredients:
- 1 cup margarine
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 2 measures egg replacer
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 1/4 tsp. almond extract
- 2 cups flour
- 1 1/2 cups oatmeal
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 14 oz. chocolate chips
- 1 cup dried cherries
- 1/2 cup chopped almonds
Equipment: Mixing bowls, cutting board, cookie sheet, oven.
Music: Ex Models - Other Mathematics
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Combine margarine and sugars in a large mixing bowl and blend until creamy. Beat in egg replacer, vanilla, and almond extract.
- In a separate bowl, mix together flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Stir this into the wet mixture one cup at a time.
- Mix in the chocolate chips, almonds, and cherries and work the dough with your hands.
- Place the dough by the tablespoon onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for ten minutes.
- Allow cookies to cool. Serve fresh or store in a cookie jar, tupperware, or wrapped up in the refrigerator.
Other cooking highlights from this past week include me slicing open my fingertip cutting garlic with my new chef’s knife and me brandishing my new (and unfortunately Emeril-branded) cast iron frying pan in as menacing a fashion as its unwieldly weight and bulk would allow. At least if I ever have occasion to hit someone over the head with it in sitcom fashion I already have my sound-effect noise ready to go. B(l)am!
